Startup Campus

In this project, we are trying to solve the soaring unemployment rate amongst the graduates of Vocational High School (SMK). The definition of SMK is a Vocational High School equivalent to Senior High School. In contrast to Senior High School which prepares the students to continue to higher studies, SMK prepares students to work after graduating from school. 

While the number of SMK graduates now outpaces that of Senior high schools, they are the biggest contributors to the unemployment rate, with around 15% or 1.5 million unemployed. This statistic is contrary to the aims of Vocational High School (SMK) which is to prepare their graduates for employment right after graduation.

Some underlying problems causing the soaring unemployment rate are:

1. Lack of opportunities for SMK graduates

There are 3 typical paths for SMK graduates; pursuing higher education, working, or doing both. However, there are some constraints hindering them to pursue any of those paths:

•  Financial constraints. Some SMK graduates prefer to continue Diploma which emphasizes more practical and vocational skills, aligned with their track in SMK. However, many of them couldn't afford this path due to financial constraints. The majority of SMK students come from lower bound families.

•  Lack of exposure to better job opportunities. Ideally, SMK graduates go to work after graduation because it is what SMK is supposed to prepare them for. However, the kind of jobs available for them is mainly blue-collar jobs with a salary under minimum wage. In addition, coming from lower bound families with typical parents’ jobs are blue collars make them less exposed to formal sector jobs.  Not to mention, they are competing with diploma and higher education graduates in the workforce. 

•  Lack of mentorship and guidance. Some SMK graduates choose to go for work and higher education. They would take any jobs -even with lower than minimum wage- to finance their higher education.  However, they often end up discontinuing both or not getting a better job because of a lack of mentorship and guidance.  They do not have a role model as a mentor they can look up to.    

2. Lack of qualifications amongst SMK graduates

There are several causes of this;

• Lack of relevance in the SMK curriculum with industrial demand. The curriculum is not ready to prepare students for the workforce.

•  Lack of 21st-century skills. There is no link and match with the industry that allows SMK students to hone 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creative thinking which are essential for employability. 

• Lack of self-esteem and motivation. Our survey showed that most SMK Students are not confident with their capability and potential - particularly when they compete with those from formal schools.

• Lack of job readiness skills. To be able to get a better job, the students need to know skills for job-seekers; what to expect when applying for jobs, how to make a powerful CV, nail the interview, and make sure everything goes well in their recruitment process. However, our survey showed that more than 70% of SMK didn’t equip their students with those skills. 

3. External factors

There are some external factors that contribute to the unemployment rate among SMK graduates: 

The rising number of SMK students. SMK has gained momentum since the government put a focus on vocational education. Some notable policies are rolled out such as ‘SMK can do it!’ and ‘link and match’ which allows the best SMK to receive various incentives and recognitions. Such policies significantly increase the number of students enrolling at SMK by 40% over the past 3 years to reach 11 million students, even outpacing the number of Senior high school students.   However, the pace of SMK revitalization couldn't cope with this circumstance.  As a result, the upsurge number of SMK students just adds another level of unemployment.  

The problems we are trying to tackle are the lack of opportunities and lack of qualifications amongst SMK students. There is an urgency to upskill SMK students with the most in-demand skills in a relatively short time period to make them stand out from the competition in the labour market. Startup Campus provides Short-Intensive Digital Bootcamps to accommodate that. 

The outcome of Startup Campus is to get 1500 SMK students or graduates onboard with 70% of them landing a decent job upon graduation. A decent job is defined as a job with a minimum regional salary rate. 

Given the problem statement we’ve defined, Startup Campus comes with 2 main interventions:

 1. A 2-month online training

Startup Campus provides the participants with online training and mentorship for 2 months.  There will be 3 tracks that students can choose from; UI/UX designer, Full-stack IT developer, and Data Scientist. These tracks are the most in-demand skills and the government has put them as priority skills to achieve 9 million digital talents by 2030.

In addition, the students will get online employability skills training which includes motivational content, job readiness such as how to ace their CV and job interview, and soft skills.

During this Bootcamp, students will get mentorships and real projects to build their portfolios. The learning activities include asynchronous and synchronous learning. Asynchronous learning will take the participants to learn independently through videos, books, and other learning references. Meanwhile, synchronous learning takes the form of active learning facilitated by expert speakers in seminars, discussions, simulations, presentations, and other interactive methods. 

To ensure the students are engaged throughout the program, we implement push and pull strategies. As for push strategies, we provide facilitators to conduct checkpoint meetings and counselling.  While for pull strategies, we provide various incentives including financial and publications in our media.   

 2. A 4-month Internship Opportunities

The most effective learning involves direct applications of the skills and theories learnt. Therefore, we provide opportunities for the students to get 4 months of internships with our company partners. 

After a 2-month online training, participants will get the chance for an internship. The participants will do a specifically assigned field project for 4 months with our company partners. The company will host the participants to deliver an assigned project and the company must assign a specific mentor to assist participants during their tenure. Through internships, participants will get real working experience as a professional and keep up with the recent competencies required in their field. 

Startup Campus targets 1500 SMK students or graduates to get on board with 70% of them landing a decent job upon graduation.  

The solution will help them to:

1. Get out of the unemployment circle. This program can help them learn in-demand skills, build portfolios, and bridge them to potential employers through internship opportunities. Through this program, they will have higher chances to land a decent job.

2. Get financial security. The majority of SMK students come from disadvantages. This program will help the students increase their bargaining power to get higher income.

3. Gain in-demand digital skills. This Bootcamp will provide 3 tracks of in-demand skills -full-stack IT developer, UI/UX designer, and data scientist in which the students can choose. The lack of digital talent becomes the main concern of the government and companies. Acquiring these skills builds a competitive advantage for the students as many companies are looking for them. 

4. Build powerful social capital. They can build networks amongst the participants themselves, mentors, and employers. This program will facilitate the networking process as participants will have the opportunity to interact intensively with important people. 

5. Hone long-life skills. They will learn 21st-century skills which include communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creative thinking. These foundational skills will help them thrive in whichever career they will build. 

Strong credentials. Achmad Zaky Foundation (AZF) is a non-profit organization founded by Achmad Zaky, the founder of Bukalapak - the pioneer of e-commerce companies in Indonesia. We strive to bring access to quality education throughout Indonesia. We build innovative schools, provide scholarships, invest in ed-tech startups, and conduct digital Bootcamp in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Startup Campus. We’ve been running Startup Campus for 1 year (YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/oYmI1q7lSHM). It has been recognized as the best digital Bootcamp by the Ministry of Education. As of now, there are more than 6000 applicants and 3  billion IDR funding from the government.

Strong partnerships with companies and the government. Strongly backed by our founder’s credentials as a highly reputable entrepreneur, we secure partnerships with many companies to support us, especially in providing internship opportunities. We also collaborate with the directorate general of vocational education for the implementation of this program. 

Strong proximity to target beneficiaries. To engage with our beneficiaries, we collaborate with Gamelab. id, which has strong connections with many SMKs in Indonesia. It provides various development programs for SMK students and successfully brought thousands of SMK students to get internships in many companies. We’ll leverage this partnership to tap into many SMKs and better design our intervention approach.  

Strong problem validation. To understand the needs of our target beneficiaries, we conducted primary research through in-depth interviews with some company representatives, educational experts, and SMK students/graduates. We also conducted secondary research through government data, journals, and articles. We did gap analysis and collaborated with experts to design the most appropriate interventions. Interviews with 100 SMK graduates show that 70% of them prefer to work directly if they can get a decent job. However, they lack many aspects to compete with university students. On the other hand, interviews are conducted with 10 company partners to identify the priority skill sets they require. We learned that there are 3 priority skills they look for; UI/UX designer, full-stack IT developer, and data scientist. 

Engaging target beneficiaries as we develop our solution. Based on our findings, we come up with an intensive digital Bootcamp for those 3 priority skills. As we develop the solution, we test the effectiveness of our interventions periodically on SMK students/graduates. 

As such, we learned the following constraints: 

1. They have financial difficulties affording to buy internet quota for online learning

2. They lack fundamental skills required for our Bootcamp such as computational thinking, statistics, and problem-solving.

3. They are prohibited to take other activities during school hours. 

Taking into account those constraints, we incorporate the following supporting conditions: 

1. Budget allocation for students’ internet quota

2. Intensive matriculation to build fundamental skills.

3. Conducting live sessions outside of school hours.

All in all, we are the right people to deliver this solution because we put our whole heart for years to bring equal access to quality education across Indonesia. If this intervention works for SMK students/graduates, then this can be replicated for all. This segment represents the majority of students in Indonesia who are in the lower bound, the underprivileged with the highest resistance to change. If this works for them, then we can transform millions of other students’ lives too.  

MIT Solve and Solver teams will be strong partners for us. We expect to get support in the form of: 

1. Public relations. With Solve becoming our partner, we can build strong credentials to attract media and high-level incumbents. If the impact of our program can be amplified by the media and get noticed by high-level authorities, we can replicate this all over Indonesia. We also expect publications to increase enthusiasm amongst schools and students to participate in this program.

2. Monitoring and evaluation design. Although we already have assessment metrics to measure our program, we need Solve to provide inputs to allow us to measure the right things. 

3. Connections to other Solver teams. As an early-stage non-profit, we acknowledge that we need support from other solver teams to learn their best practices and build community.  Together, we could possibly make a huge movement in education. 

4. Guest speakers. Inviting experts from Solve networks, especially international speakers to our live sessions would enrich students’ learning experience.

5. Funding. We want to expand our target beneficiaries to SMK students all over the country. Therefore, the fund will be used for acquiring more target beneficiaries, improving curriculum and learning content, attracting top speakers both local and international and hiring more staff at the operational level.   

Given our preliminary research, these are the main problems we’d like to tackle and our solution designs:

1. The lack of opportunities amongst SMK students/graduates. As explained previously, there are 3 factors contributing to this; financial constraints, lack of exposure to job opportunities, and lack of mentorships/guidance. -> To handle this, we incorporate a 4-month internship into our program design. This is a paid internship with dedicated mentors for each student. At the end of it, the student will need to accomplish real projects and present the result to the public through social media. Therefore, we hope this internship gives them extra income to ease their financial difficulties, exposure to real working life, and valuable mentorships that will help shape their career.   

2. The lack of qualifications amongst SMK students/graduates. As explained previously, there are 4 factors contributing to this; lack of relevance in SMK curriculum with industry, lack of 21st-century skills, lack of self-esteem, and job readiness. -> To handle this, we design our digital Bootcamp specifically to develop the most in-demand skills in the industry. Complementary that, we design our matriculation intensively to build fundamental skills including self-esteem and 21st-century skills. We also provide job readiness skills to ace their CV and interview complementary to the internship.  

3. Supporting conditions. On top of that, we fully acknowledge that our target beneficiaries have other constraints; financial difficulties to buy internet quota, lack of fundamental skills, and flexibility as they are prohibited to take other activities during school hours. -> Therefore, we’ll allocate a certain portion of the budget for the internet quota, incorporate prerequisites into our matriculation, and provide recording for the live session and asynchronous materials so students can access it during their free time. 

4. Maintaining engagement. We are fully aware of the challenge in online learning, which is to maintain engagement throughout the program. -> To mitigate this, we provide a dedicated mentor for each student to track their progress from the beginning. Complementary that, we provide counselling services to help them overcome non-academic obstacles. 

5. Shorten the time to get a job. It takes time to wait for the transformation in SMK levels due to rigid bureaucracy. -> Therefore, Startup Campus should be a quick win to shorten the period normally needed to get absorbed by the labour force.  This semester's Digital Bootcamp will provide all the necessary skills to get into the workforce in a relatively short period of time.

The program will be expected to disrupt the market of formal education. In Indonesia, the primary way to get a decent job is through formal education like university. Unfortunately, not many people could afford that. This is also the reason for the low participation rate in higher education stagnant at 30% over the past 5 years. If we can prove that a digital Bootcamp can generate the same quality of graduates as that of universities, then this can be the most compelling alternative education because it is much more affordable and accessible. 

With the support of MIT Solve and Solver teams, we could possibly create radical transformation in education and get noticed by the media and high-level authority. We could advocate for the government to provide incentives to companies who hire graduates from this kind of Bootcamp. We can convince companies to hire our graduates because they already build portfolios during the Bootcamp. This would be appealing for companies too since they can hire our graduates much cheaper than universities’ graduates.

We categorize our impact into direct and indirect beneficiaries:

1. For the next year, we expect to have impacts on direct beneficiaries in the form of capacity building, branding, and talent fulfilment

• SMK students. We expect to get 1500 participants of SMK students or graduates. Upon completion, we expect 70% of them to get the jobs -> to achieve this, we have established partnerships with Gamelab.id and the directorate general of vocational education to promote our program to SMKs all over Indonesia. On top of that, we have established partnerships with 100 companies to channel the students for internships and provide speakers for the Bootcamp. 
• SMK or the schools. We expect to establish partnerships with 40 SMKs all over Indonesia. This partnership will provide SMKs benefits in the form of branding and curriculum adoption to better cater to the needs of the industry. To achieve this, we’ll leverage our connections with Gamelab.id and the directorate general of vocational education. In addition, we have established relationships with prominent media that we can use for the branding of these SMKs. 
• Company partners. We expect to establish partnerships with 100 companies. In return, we help them get talents at a much cheaper cost. To achieve this, we leverage our founder’s connections to many companies such as Bukalapak, Traveloka, Goto, Telkom, etc. 

2. For the next 5 years, we expect to have impacts on indirect beneficiaries in the form of knowledge creation and public dissemination.

• Edu tech companies and Bootcamp providers. We expect to disseminate our best practices from this project to at least 100 Edtech/Bootcamp providers. To achieve this, we leverage our founder’s connections to many education technology companies and Bootcamp providers. We’ll arrange an online event inviting those companies to disseminate our best practices. 
• Community partners. We expect to establish partnerships with 100 community organizations. They will benefit from the adoption of our model and curriculum to enhance their interventions. To achieve this, we’ll disseminate our model and curriculum through e-mailing lists.
• Society in general.  We’ll make the documentation of this project widely accessible so people can learn more about it and duplicate it in their own regions. To achieve this, we’ll put our project evaluation report on our website and make it public.

The followings are several indicators to measure our progress and impact:

1. Number of staff/volunteers/implementers added, hired, and trained during the project (measured through HR tracker and data)
   • Number of permanent staff = 12
   • Number of non-permanent staff = 8
   • Number of students = 1500
   • Number of tutors/ mentors = 50 
   • Number of facilitators = 50
   • Number of expert speakers = 15
2. Number of companies, organizations, or collaborations created (measured through tracking the number of agreements signed in 2022 - 2023).
   • Sign MoU with the directorate general of vocational education.
   • Sign MoU with at least 1 private institution to support content development of 3 tracks.
   • Establish partnerships with 40 vocational schools.
   • Establish partnerships with 100 companies spread around Indonesia.
3. Number of program resources developed (measured through tracking modules/subjects)
   • Core courses for 3 tracks; Data Scientist, UI/UX Designer, and Full-stack developer (estimated 900 learning hours each track consisting of self-study, mentoring, live sessions, projects, and internship).
   • Job preparation courses on employability, personal development, and motivational content (estimated 100 learning hours).
   • Assessment or project design for each track.
   • Mentorship framework for each track.
   • Internship guidelines.  
4. Number of beneficiaries reached during the program (measured through a database of registered students).
   • 1500 vocational school students and graduates.
5. Number of beneficiaries gain capacity (measured through surveys, online assessment, and self-report)
   • 70% of participants accomplish the program 
   • 80% of participants get internships
   • High satisfaction rate of 80%
6. Number of beneficiaries gain employment (measured through a post-program survey to students).
   • 1000 participants gain employment within 6 months of completion of this program.

There are 2 interventions we'd like to elaborate in this ToC; (I) Digital Bootcamp, (II) Knowledge Creation and Public Dissemination

I. Digital Bootcamp

1. Inputs/Activities

a. A 2-months online training (synchronous and asynchronous) to convey theories, materials (written, video, etc), assignment to build technical competencies - track-based (UI/UX designer, data scientist, or full-stack developer). 

b. Mentorship for personal and professional development; job readiness skills, career, and academic counselling.

c. A 4-month internship with dedicated mentors from company partners to execute real projects and get real working experience.

2. Outputs, participants gain:

• A certain level of technical competencies in either 1 of these 3 areas: Data Scientist or Analyst, UI/UX Designer, and Full-stack developer
• A Certain level of self-esteem; the confidence and courage to try and compete with others.
• A certain level of employability skills; how to build a powerful resume, nail interviews, find suitable jobs, and network. 
• A Certain level of 21st-century skills; collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creative thinking.
• Social capital with mentors, participants, experts, and working professionals.

3. Short Term Outcome: 

Participants demonstrate the ability to:

a. Do technical works related to: 

• Data Science and Analysis; able to use software to collect, clean, and analyze large datasets, present findings and insight using data visualization, create compelling stories with the data and draw meaningful conclusions.
• UI/UX Design; able to apply user research and design methods to create functional and user-friendly interface designs.
• Full-stack development; able to work on programming fundamentals, web front end, and web back end development

b. Set life and career goals, plan, and execute them. 

c. Get a decent job within 6 months of program completion.

4. Long Term Outcome 

Participants become long-life learners and improve their quality of life in terms of;

a. Financial situation

b. In-demand technical competencies, soft skills, and life skills

c. Powerful networks.

II. Knowledge Creation and Public Dissemination

1. Inputs/Activities

a. The public receives access to recorded lecturing sessions (via Youtube) related to UI/UX design, data science, or full-stack IT development.

b. We build networks with communities and create live public seminars so the public can participate and have a fruitful discussion with experts.

c. Public receives our best practices related to designing digital Bootcamp via social media, such as Instagram (IG live, IG feed, IG reels), Tiktok, email blasts, etc.

2. Outputs

The public gains awareness of the importance of digital boot camps to accelerate education transformation in Indonesia.

3. Short Term Outcome

The public demonstrates a shift in values, engaging with more informal education like digital Bootcamp as promising solutions to reduce unemployment. 

4. Long Term Outcome

The public accepts digital Bootcamps as alternative education to tackle large-scale social problems and joins the movements to promote digital Bootcamps as more affordable alternatives to formal education.

We believe that the core lever of our intervention is in the learning design and technology is the enabler to make it happen. We bring top experts to craft our curriculum, content, method, and delivery, including the technology we use to facilitate the learning. Hence, we’ll use the following technologies to help us deliver the program: 

1. Zoom for live sessions and mentoring session

2. Discord is the main communication channel for networking and information dissemination.

3. Google Classroom to deliver materials, instructions, and assignments

4. Google form for quizzes, assessments, and surveys

5. Mentimeter, Kahoot, and Jamboard for interactive live sessions.

6. Youtube for public dissemination

7. Software -Figma, Visual Code, Tableau, Miro, Google Analytics - to support their learning.  

We are committed to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusivity into every aspect of our work: 

1. Our leadership team composes of various ethnicities. Our team is also gender-diverse and inclusive with a ratio of female to male nearly equal to 50:50. We provide equal opportunity to climb up leadership positions regardless of gender, race, and religion. We are committed to preserving this diversity as our priority company policy. 

2. The participants are SMK students and graduates all over Indonesia. We are committed to providing equal opportunities for all regardless of gender, race, and religion. We are committed to preserving this diversity as our priority company policy. 

Notwithstanding that we fully support diversity, we’re aware of inevitable circumstances preventing our effort to preserve diversity. Hence, here’s our approach to achieving our goals of becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive:

1. Provide internet quota to all participants especially for residents outside Java Island, to support their learning journey and allow them to break equality barriers.

2. Provide matriculation sessions to participants from outside Java to ensure no one is left behind. There is a wide gap among some areas in Indonesia, in terms of knowledge level and resources.

3. Provide equal opportunity for all. Everyone is welcomed, respected, supported, and valued regardless of gender, race, and religion.

1. Value proposition: 

• Startup Campus (SC) is a digital Bootcamp with a job guarantee.
  

• Develop in-demand skills

• Provides a 4-month internship with our company partners (after a 2-month online class)

• Close proximity with our beneficiaries and company partners allows us to design the best learning experience and internship program

• Involving the best experts from top-notch companies like Ainun Najib (Head of Analytics, Grab Singapore) and Dessy Kadriyani (AVP of Virtual Product, Bukalapak) to curate curriculum and learning content. 

• Highly dedicated mentors    

2. Target beneficiaries: Our direct beneficiaries for this project are SMK students and graduates, SMK and schools, and company partners. Meanwhile, indirect beneficiaries are ed-tech companies, communities, and the public. However, outside of this project scope, we could expand our target beneficiaries to everyone who seeks personal and professional development.

3. Beneficiaries Relationship: To build close proximity with our beneficiaries, we collaborate with companies whose customers are similar. We leverage our network with the government, the ministry of education, and the directorate general of vocational education. On top of it, we directly approach our beneficiaries through intensive communication both collective and personal. When they need more information they can reach our team through hotline WA. 

4. Channels: We leverage social media (IG and LinkedIn), company partners, community, messaging platforms (WA and telegram), and media to increase awareness and reach out to our beneficiaries. 

5. Key partners: companies to provide internships and expert speakers, education organizations and vocational schools to encourage students to join this program, communities and media to share the information about this program and to conduct public dissemination. 

6. Key activities: A 2-month online training consists of self-study, mentorships, live sessions, and projects. Complementary to that is a 4-month internship consisting of real working projects. The participants will receive some materials (reading/video), interactive discussion with speakers during live sessions, get feedback on their assignments, and mentorships. Participants who finish this program will have a high chance to be hired directly by our company partners.

7. Key resources: Project team that consists of experienced people with diverse backgrounds, mentors, strong partnerships, and learning materials that we develop according to the most recent industrial demand. 

8. Cost structure: 

• People cost (20 full time staff,  50 mentors, 50 facilitators, 15 experts) = USD 120,000
• Project cost (subscriptions to learning platform, content development, data package for students) = USD 920,000
• Office cost = USD 200,000
• Marketing cost (promotions, partnerships) = USD 180,000

Total cost for the project = USD 1,420,000 

9. Revenue structure: 

• Paid bootcamp program = 0 (open this July 2022)
• Sustained donation = USD 120,000
• Expected grants from MIT solve and the government = USD 1,300,000 

Total revenue = USD 1,420,000

For financial sustainability, we will deploy the following combinations:

1. Selling our Bootcamp starting this July 2022 with price points ranging from 500$ - 800$
2. Partnering with companies and organizations to reduce the cost of expert speakers, mentors, and promotions.  
3. Sustained donation from Achmad Zaky, our founder who’ll be committed to supporting this program forever. 
4. Sustained grants from the government since Startup Campus have been recognized as the best program under their initiative, Kampus Merdeka. 
5. Achmad Zaky Foundation has generated revenue mainly from impact investments and other business lines to support Startup Campus.

1. Grants from the Ministry of Education and Culture amounting to USD 210,000 to run our pilot project. Startup Campus has been recognized as the best program under their initiative and hence, the grant will be increased to USD 2,000,000 starting next semester. 
2. Sustained donations from Achmad Zaky amounting to USD 120,000 per annum. 
3. The revenue stream from our impact investments and other business lines amounting to USD 100,000 per annum.